I'm finally getting into the modern age and looking at You-tube videos, blogs, and Pinterest posts to improve my key-making techniques. After making a few string art keys I read that it's easier to keep the nails straight if holes are drilled in the wood prior to nailing. To finish this series I cut out my key patterns, attached them to the wood boards with some double-sided tape, and got out my trusty drill.

Things would have been easier if I would have set up a proper work table and stopped when I got tired. I was so close to finishing I ignored my aching back and kept drilling. Of course the drill bit broke and, sadly, (or should I say somewhat painfully) the drill slipped and the broken bit punctured through the fleshy pad of my finger. After languishing under cold water, some polysporin, and a band aid I finished the task.

The next day I was looking for a bit of sympathy at the office for my "accident" (incompetence?) when one of my colleagues asked if I'd had a tetanus shot. Frankly it hadn't occurred to me. My colleague suggested that I do a bit of reading on tetanus and then make a decision about whether or not to get a shot. I so appreciated the gentle suggestion; it was exactly the right approach for me. The thing about tetanus is, you don't know you've got it until it's too late to do anything about it. Wanting to avoid a lifetime of nerve pain, I walked to the medi-clinic beside the office and within ten minutes I was back at my desk with no worries of tetanus possibilities for at least ten years. All for free - thank you Canadian health care!

For Key 1445 I used an old piece of board and some fuzzy purple yarn.

For Key 1446 I burnt an old board with a butane torch and ran a lighter over the yarn to take the excess fuzz off it. I might have gotten a bit too enthusiastic with the lighter in a few spots!

Initially I bought balsa boards for the woodburning and string art keys. I much prefer using old boards (it's a lot harder to get the nails to work in the balsa board because it's so thin) but some of my key patterns were too big for the scrap boards I had.

I finally got a bit smarter by the time I got to key 1449 - I left the paper pattern in place while I worked on stringing the nails (that way I could keep the circle patterns straight; unlike Key 1447 where I lost track of the circles in the pattern and ended up free-handing everything). Still the design of this key changed a bit in the execution - for some reason it reminds me of a broken heart.

Every once in awhile I make something that seems a bit extra special to me - Key 1450 is one of those times. I used two kinds of nails for this key and more of that fuzzy fancy yarn. I felt like I found my groove with this key and even though it was late I pushed on finished the final two keys in this string art series.